one single regret
by masqueradingHEART
Summary: Sequel to One Single Mistake. Sirius Black is back at Hogwarts after the incident with the Whomping Willow.


**author's note!** well hello and welcome back my dear, lovely readers! i hope you enjoy this installment of my little short series here. obviously i have decided to start off with the sequel to one single mistake and then do the prequel. again, i may do both at once, but for now this is it. just because it took me forever to write less than 1,500 words. -fail- i hope you enjoy! leave a review!

**disclaimer!** i do not own harry potter. i do not own anything that has to do with it. so don't sue me. (:

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**Chapter One**

It had been two weeks.

Two weeks since he had been suspended. Two weeks since he made the biggest mistake of his life. Two weeks since his friends started hating him. Two weeks since he had started hating himself.

Though of course, he always knew, deep in the back of his mind, that there was always a part of him that hated himself. A voice that he had done so well to suppress, to stuff into that place deep in the back of his mind. He had done so well to ignore it. But it had never truly gone away; it had always remained there, waiting for its moment to come back out and envelope him in that pitying self-loathing he so much tried to avoid.

For the past two weeks, that voice was the only thing he could hear. No matter how much he tried to ignore it. It wasn't as if he wanted to listen to it. He just couldn't help it. For the first time in a long time, Sirius knew that the voice was right.

He was scum.

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He was supposed to be going back to school in the morning. For once in his life he wasn't looking forward to it. Though, of course, before it had always been he was returning after a holiday break; he was returning home. Now, he was returning after a suspension that he so rightly deserved more of. He should've gotten expelled for what he did; anyone in their right mind could tell you that. And while he didn't think he should ever be allowed to step foot in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ever again, Dumbledore seemed to think differently, because here Sirius was, sitting up in bed at three in the morning, dreading the moment he had to Floo back to Hogwarts in about five hours.

He'd spent the two weeks of his much deserved suspension with his cousin Andromeda and her family. She was only partially informed on what happened on that night two weeks ago by Dumbledore and she had received little to no elaboration from her cousin, much to her dismay. But she didn't push Sirius. She knew the younger Black much better than that. Instead, she kept him busy, as she knew he needed to be when in such a state, lest he do something more drastic. For the majority of his stay, Sirius spent his time keeping an eye on the toddler daughter of his cousin.

When Nymphadora, or Dora, was sleeping or crying for her mother, Sirius was kept busy doing simple household tasks around Andy and Ted's small yet comfortable flat. He cleaned, muggle style, the parlor, the kitchen, the bathroom. But that only lasted so long and by the end of the first week, there was no cleaning left for Sirius to do and he had instead taken up reading in his spare time. He read his schoolbooks first, until Andy caught him and decided his time would probably be better spent with something a little more entertaining – which apparently meant J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.

Naturally, as a three year old has much energy and rarely sleeps, Sirius was given little time to read the books and only managed to make it completely through one of them.

But his time was up now and he was due to arrive back at Hogwarts in just a few hours. He wasn't ready. He was nowhere near ready. Going to the park with his second cousin was as much time as he had seen the outside world in the past two weeks. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to adapt to the school again.

But that was the least of his worries. It was his friends, if he could call them that anymore, that he was most troubled about, and for good reason. They should have no interest in him any longer. He was no good.

He was scum.

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It was six in the morning by the time Remus Lupin woke up. The sun was just barely up and he could hear his friends' snores from behind their curtains. How they could sleep on such a day was beyond his knowledge. He himself had hardly slept the night before, plagued by his thoughts and troubles.

While the three of them hadn't spoken about what today was, or even spoken about the person that made today such a dreaded day for that matter, Remus knew that it was troubling both James and Peter. He knew that they both knew what today was. Or, rather, James knew and Peter was at least able to pick up on the signs of distress to feel the emotion equally.

The past two weeks had been miserable for the trio. Remus had made James and Peter swear to him not to mention the incident. He didn't want to think about it. Of course, James had a lot of trouble with this. He wanted to yell and scream until his face turned blue about it. He wanted to make Remus feel better, of course, but he also wanted nothing more than to rant about what an idiot their fourth counterpart was.

Because he was an idiot. He was more than that. He was a disgrace.

But Remus knew better than that. He didn't want his anger to get the better of him, to think the way James did about their friend. Because that was still what he was, Remus thought. He wasn't too sure, for he had never gotten the chance to speak to him, to hear his side of the story. The other boy had been packed up and shipped off the grounds before Remus had even left the Hospital Wing.

None of them knew where he had gone in his time away. They all secretly hoped it wasn't home, though James wouldn't admit it. But Remus knew that his old friend would rather starve in the streets for two weeks than go back to the house he had run away from over the summer. While he never fully heard the horror stories of what went on in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Remus could at least grasp the basics of it. He knew that there were no niceties that went on there. No pleasantries, only talk of dark magic and the failure of their son, as far as the oldest Black son was concerned.

No, Remus knew that his friend would never return there, not if he could help it.

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James awoke early, especially for him. Remus had only been awake for an hour and a half by the time his bespectacled friend groaned and stumbled around for his glasses on the bedside table, cursing when he knocked them on the ground. When the messy-haired boy was situated and sitting up in bed, curtains pushed away and bare feet touching the cool ground, Remus greeted him with a quiet "hey" that meant a lot more than the three letters were intended for.

James smiled slightly, but knowingly, back at him and stood up out of his bed to make his way over to his friend's. Remus sat up and let his feet dangle off the edge of his bed to make room for James, who sat down next to him. The two sat in silence for a while, in comfortable silence as they both got lost in their own thoughts, which both knew where focusing around the same thing. There really wasn't much else to think about on a day like this, of course.

They sat like this for about twenty minutes until Peter woke up with a groan of his own before he stumbled into the bathroom to jump into the shower, completely oblivious as to what was happening on the bed next to him. Either that or he felt it better to allow the two friends some more privacy.

It happened shortly after that.

James nudged Remus gently with his shoulder. Remus, without hesitation, playfully pushed his friend back. Before either of them knew it, they were shoving each other and hitting one another with the pillows on Remus' bed. A true testimony of what their friendship meant to one another, despite the roughness of the day.

When Peter emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later, James and Remus had shifted to lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and earning an odd look from their shorter friend. "Dare I ask?" Peter questioned and James immediately started laughing, Remus following suit shortly after.

And it was that scene that the door opened up on, interrupting the three friends, with a quiet creak. James, Remus and Peter looked up and immediately stilled at the sight of the person standing above them.

Sirius Black was back.


End file.
